For many people their Christian life has become indifferent. Faith has lost its edge and the great enthusiasm which followed their conversion has gradually cooled. The Christian life has become comfortable and easy. It almost seems as if they are losing touch with the living God. While this may be a description of ourselves and even of the church today, it was the state of Israel at the time of Malachi. The prophet addresses the problem of spiritual degeneration, the fossilizing of our faith, and through Malachi God challenges and accuses Israel about their spiritual condition. John Benton shows how Malachi's book is a call from lax and hollow religion and points the way back to genuine, enduring faith in the Lord who does not change.

One of the twelve Minor Prophets, Micah unwaveringly spoke God's message to Israel--a message filled with judgment but also laced with the promise of redemption. Micah combined poetic complexity and literary sophistication to compel his audience to respond. And now, through an exacting linguistic and literary analysis of the biblical text, coauthors Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman explain what Micah meant to his contemporaries, as well as what his message means to readers today.

What sets Micah apart is the attention it pays to the details of the prophet's original text. The commentary is descriptive rather than speculative, philological rather than theological. With unusual care, the authors--two of the world's leading Bible scholars--examine the features of Micah's biblical Hebrew and prophetic discourse. They discover the use of a special kind of language, which, in its poetic composition, differs significantly from the language of classical Hebrew prose.

At the zenith of their careers, masters of all relevant disciplines, Andersen and Freedman are the perfect duo to unlock the words of this challenging prophet.

This volume demonstrates the intricate literary structure and high poetic quality of the book of Nahum and represents a significant break-through in the study of Hebrew prosody with important implications for understanding the formation of the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

This volume represents a significant breakthrough in the study of Hebrew prosody with important implications for understanding the formation of the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Duane Christensen, a renowned biblical scholar, offers a detailed analysis of the Hebrew text of Nahum and demonstrates the intricate literary structure and high poetic quality of the work.

Nahum is a book about God's justice and portrays God as strong, unyielding, and capable of great anger. This view of God's nature stands in contrast to that found in Jonah, another book in the section of the Hebrew Bible known as the Book of the Twelve Prophets, which presents God as "compassionate, gracious . . . [and] abounding in steadfast love." Christensen shows how Nahum and Jonah present complementary aspects of God's nature, each essential for an understanding of the divine being. The commentary includes the most extensive bibliography published to date of works cited.

Numbers chronicles a community faced with many competing interests, groups, and issues, endeavoring to define itself and its mission in the world. Dennis Olsen offers readers a comprehensive interpretation of this often overlooked book. He provides a thoroughly contemporary reading of Numbers that enlightens the modern church as it navigates the contemporary wilderness of pluralism, competing voices, and and shifting foundations.